They May Be Stupid, But They Sure

It's Never The Same Relationship. I See My Job As Filling In The Blanks. Whatever It Is That The Artist Lacks In The Process Of Making A Record, I'm Supposed To Fill That In. And Sometimes It's A Lot Of Stuff And I Have To Hector Them About Working On The Material And That Sort Of Thing. Sometimes You Have An Artist That's Really Fairly Self-sufficient; They Just Need Another Ear To Offer Some Objective Criticism, But Otherwise Pretty Much Know What They're Doing. It Varies A Lot.

I've Had Production Offers With Artists I Really Admire, And Oftentimes That Doesn't Work Out. Sometimes It Does, But... For Instance I Was Asked If I Wanted To Do A Talking Heads Album Back In The Late '70s, Early '80s, And I Was Already Working On A Different Project And Didn't Have Time, So I Never Got The Opportunity To Work With Them.

There Are Any Number Of Conditions As To Why Your Life Didn't Turn Out The Way You Intended It To. My Whole Philosophy Has Always Been That There Is No Way To Change Anything Else In The World If You Don't Have The Capacity To Change Yourself.

There Are People Who Are Known For Some Contribution To Pop Culture, But That Doesn't Mean That You've Survived Solely On Your Relevance To Whatever Is Currently Popular. That's What A Pop Star Is, In That Sense. You Might Start Out As A Pop Star, But That's Just An Opportunity To Become More Relevant, If You Possibly Can.

Sometimes You're A Psychiatrist And Sometimes You're A Group Therapist. The Dynamics In Between People And The Misgivings Sometimes That Artists Have When They Get Into The Studio Because They're Under A Different Level Of Scrutiny. A Lot Of Them Can Be Insecure About It. My Job Is Not Simply To Make Musical Determinations But Sometimes To Just Keep People From Flipping Out During The Process.